ANBI
1157
Street Art
Mural Painting
God is a verb
Street Art Museum Amsterdam
Author:
Johanna de Haan
Artist Bio:
Place:
Immanuel Kanthof
Date:
Technique:
brush
Material:
Wall
Acquisition:
Commission
Completed:
2019
Condition:
Gone / Illegible
Physical Description:
SAMA lent a wall of it’s HQ to de Haan where she hand-painted a stanza from her poem GOD IS A VERB. Under the gallery’s right window, she painted the poem in the original Dutch, using orange paint, then layered the English translation over the top in black. She repeated her poem again under the left window but reversed the languages, so that the original Dutch version, this time in black, was painted over the English, in bright pink. By layering the two versions of the poem on top of each other, de Haan brings into focus the similarities and differences between the languages.
Iconography:
"On SAMA’s northern wall, I wrote the first stanza of the poem; god is a verb. Under one window I first wrote the Dutch version of the poem and then painted the English over it. Under the second window, I wrote the English translation of the poem, then painted the Dutch over that. In this way, the installation asks viewers to examine similarities and differences. The intimate nature of the contents and the handwritten words contrast with the order of the street. I want to ask the public to write down for me the word for God in their language or religion. I would like to collect all the names for god or at least 26; one word for every character of the alphabet."
Gallery
